


I Beg For Some Forgiveness (But Begging's Not My Business)

by Sweedledome



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-09
Updated: 2015-03-09
Packaged: 2018-03-17 04:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3515090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweedledome/pseuds/Sweedledome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alone in her tent, Lexa tries to deal with the repercussions of her decision. One-shot</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Beg For Some Forgiveness (But Begging's Not My Business)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the song 'Up The Junction' by Squeeze

She stands hunched over the table with all their plans on it, fingers curling into the wood so deep her nails drag along its surface and leave tiny imprints. The miniature Mount Weather, the troops positioned around and the battle strategy ready to go. A battle strategy that will never see completion.

 

Lexa is angry.

 

It had to be done. It allowed the return of all her people without a single loss of life. Any leader would have made the same decision. It was a good decision.

 

So why won’t Clarke’s image leave her head?

Lexa sees her memory surface with each blink.

 

 

_“Please don’t do this.”_

 

She can recount every detail of hurt in Clarke’s eyes as she came to understand what was happening. Lexa saw her face fracture piece by piece in a way she never wished to and each fragment of Clarke’s hurt drives into her a thousand times over with a pain a blade can only dream of.

 

It was the right decision. The alternative was to order her people into an almost impossible fortress. To tell them to go die miles beneath the earth in a concrete tomb already spattered with the blood of their kin and to do it for the same Sky People who had burned their warriors alive not all that long ago.

 

_“Please don’t do this.”_

 

Lexa has a duty to her people. Commander is not a job title, it is her life. It is what she is and has been from the moment the soul of the previous Commander passed to her. That is what comes first above all else, her duty to her people. It was the _only_ decision.

 

_“Please don’t do this.”_

Lexa slams her hand into the cup sitting on her table, leaving the air ringing with a metallic clang as it flies off and collides with something else. Victory stands at the back of sacrifice, a lesson life has seen fit to deliver to Lexa a thousand times over. When the Ice People finally released Costia’s head to her, Lexa took an oath in that moment to never allow such weakness to seep back into her again. To never again allow her own personal emotions to interfere with her ability to lead her people. It was an oath she struggled to keep at times but one she kept nevertheless because it was vital that she do right by her soldiers and to those her soldiers were sworn to protect.

 

But she never could have foreseen Clarke.

 

In Clarke, Lexa sees a light. A light that so few possess but that seemed to shine out of Clarke in the darkest of times. She said she never asked to lead, that she was just doing the best she could…but, whether she wants it or not, that light draws others to her. Compels them to follow her. By all accounts Clarke’s mother should be the one in charge, the one given the official title yet it is Clarke the Sky People follow. Why? It’s an undefinable quality within that people instinctively recognise and become loyal to because it is deserving of that loyalty.

 

It’s something Lexa herself was unable to avoid. She recognised Clarke’s strength of character immediately but did not notice the way it was beginning to affect her until it was too late. Lexa sought to distance herself from the Sky Princess but was unable to fully withdraw because every time she tried, Clarke did something to pull her back in again.

 

At first she had seen it as a weakness, a failure of self to allow these feelings to grow inside of her. She is Commander Lexa, heda to the Grounders and that is the purpose of her existence. With time though, Clarke had begun to convince her this wasn’t all Lexa was. That maybe, just maybe she could be more than her title. She could be someone who loves Clarke as well as Commander and have just this one thing for herself to quiet her darkened mind in the dead of night.

 

For a second, she believed it all to be true. Here, in this very tent, Lexa had kissed Clarke and felt Clarke kiss back. For the first time in many years, Lexa began to consider the idea of something more for herself, something more than just surviving. Lexa now stands in the same spot it happened and feels a heat behind her eyelids. A prickling feeling she is unaccustomed to but knows exactly what it is as she thinks on how that one moment is probably all she will ever get. One gloriously, tragically fleeting moment where she got to experience Clarke’s light first hand before it was all ripped away.

 

Lexa wants to go to Clarke and beg her to see. Lexa has never begged for anything in her life, never wanted to beg for anything in her life, never before even considered the notion of begging in fact…but it’s Clarke and all Lexa wants is some way to take that look of utter hopelessness from Clarke’s eyes. On some level, Lexa thinks Clarke does see. She’s a leader too after all and Lexa’s been telling herself that Clarke would make the same decision if the situation were reversed but the truth is that she’s not 100% sure Clarke would have. Clarke’s more empathetic than Lexa is and Lexa had taken that for a lack of strength to do what is necessary for the longest time but Clarke’s compassion reminded Lexa that, although hard decisions have to be taken, she didn’t have to resign herself to their inevitability so quickly. She didn’t have to be so desensitised to the world around her. That revelation had seemed like a good thing at the time but now Lexa _hurts._

 

Lexa took away any opportunity for those in Mount Weather to survive and that’s a betrayal Clarke’s eyes swore she would never get past, no matter how much Lexa begged. Both the fate she had condemned those people to and the loss of Clarke will tear at Lexa for a long time to come. Lexa knows this. Right now she’s itching to do something, anything to change the way she is feeling but what’s done is done. Maybe throwing herself at Clarke’s feet might convey how hard this whole thing is but she won’t. She can apologise for the fate of those still in the mountain and she can apologise for the alliance they are losing…but she cannot apologise for saving the lives of her people.

 

When the Mountain Man had appeared with his offer, a jagged shard of ice pierced Lexa somewhere in her lower abdomen and dragged into her further with every word falling from his smug lips. She had wanted to cut him down where he stood, make him take the words back as though she never heard them because if she never heard them then she wouldn’t be faced with the choice she was.

 

A heartbeat was all that was needed to understand the implications such a choice would have for Clarke’s people.

 

To understand the brutal agony Clarke’s people would suffer as their fight ended.

 

To understand that they would no longer be able to maintain an alliance with the Sky People.

 

To understand that Clarke would never be able to forgive her.

 

The same heartbeat was all Lexa needed to know what her decision would be.

 

What her decision _had_ to be.

 

Lexa slumps her way into the throne she uses to command respect from her warriors. It is a symbol of her power, it’s where she is strongest and where she can reassure herself of the responsibility this seat demands. The burden it places upon her. Tonight it feels like the loneliest place in the world and, for the first time in a long time, Lexa allows tears to drip down her face as she thinks on all she has lost.

 

Once again her thoughts turn to the only thing she really knows on this earth.

 

How will she survive?

 

 


End file.
